Saturday, May 13, 2017 • 7:00 PM ​

Laura Nicole Smalley

Senior Recital

DePaul Recital Hall 804 West Belden Avenue • Chicago

Saturday, May 13, 2017 • 7:00 PM ​ DePaul Recital Hall

Laura Nicole Smalley, soprano Senior Recital Michael McElvain, piano Aaron Brancato, cello

PROGRAM

Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) Nulla in mundo pax sincera, RV 630 (1735)

Michael McElvain, organ Aaron Brancato, cello

Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959); arr. Laura Nicole Smalley Bachianas brasileiras, No. 5 (1938) 1. Ária (Cantilena) ​ ​

Michael McElvain, piano Aaron Brancato, cello

Intermission

Laura Nicole Smalley • May 13, 2017 Program

Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) Poèmes pour Mi (1936) I. Action de grâces II. Paysage VI. Ta voix VIII. Le collier IX. Prière exaucée

Michael McElvain, piano

Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) On this Island (1937) Let the Florid Music Praise Now the Leaves are Falling Fast Seascape Nocturne As it is Plenty

Michael McElvain, piano

Laura Nicole Smalley is from the studio of Jo Rodenburg. This recital is presented in partial fulfillment of the degree Bachelor of Music.

As a courtesy to those around you, please silence all cell phones and other electronic devices. Flash photography is not permitted. Thank you.

Laura Nicole Smalley • May 13, 2017

PROGRAM NOTES Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) Nulla in mundo pax sincera Duration: 12 minutes It was common in the early 18th century for a wealthy family’s oldest son to enter into the church, and so, in 1703, Antonio Vivaldi was ordained. This, along with his inheritance of curly red hair, would earn him a nickname among his friends: ‘Il Prete Rosso’ (the red priest). Although he eventually withdrew from his church duties to travel and focus on his music, much of Vivaldi’s best known works - solo motets, cantatas, and choral works like the famous Gloria - are of the sacred genre. ​ ​ His sacred music was influenced by operatic practices of the time. The solo motet Nulla in mundo pax sincera begins with a Siciliano-like da capo aria, its accompaniment ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ churning through harmonies in his signature Vivaldian style. The anonymous Latin text tells of a world devoid of honesty and peace, and praises Jesus for the ‘freedom from bitterness’ found only through him. In the recitativo that follows, Vivaldi embellishes key words: fuggiamus (‘let us flee’) in a rapid flourish of ascending notes; ​ ​ corda (‘heart’) creates a falling melisma that suggests the ‘hidden wounds’ of the ​ heart. These melismatic passages display Vivaldi’s common use of quick juxtapositions between slow and fast rhythms. The motet ends with a coloratura display in Alleluia, a joyous thanksgiving for salvation from a deceitful world. ​ ​

Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959) Bachianas brasileiras no. 5 Duration: 7 minutes From a young age, Heitor Villa-Lobos had an admiration for Western music ​ ​ instilled in him. He began learning cello and at age six, his aunt gifted him a copy of J.S. Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier. At 18, he left home to travel Brazil, spending ​ ​ his days playing cello and guitar, gathering knowledge of Brazilian folk music, and composing. Yet, that early appreciation for Western art continued to draw him, and in 1923 he made his first trip to Paris. There he felt at home with the heady environment of struggling artists, and found a “freedom of expression attained for the first time in the challenging atmosphere of artistic in Paris.” For the next seven years Villa-Lobos travelled between his two countries, composing and performing. He brought his brasilidade (Brazilian-ness) to the salons of Paris and the flair of ​ ​ Paris to his homeland. Little did he know that when he returned to Brazil in 1930, the political unrest of the time would keep him from his beloved Paris until after World War II. Nevertheless,

Laura Nicole Smalley • May 13, 2017 Program Notes

Villa-Lobos continued his mission to merge Western music and the Brazilian vernacular tradition, and Bachianas brasileiras was born. The complete Bachianas ​ ​ ​ ​ brasileiras includes nine suites written between 1930-1945. Written in 1938, Bachianas ​ ​ brasileiras no. 5 was his “homage to the great genius of Johann Sebastian Bach”, ​ whom he considered “a kind of universal folkloric source, rich and profound … [a source] linking all peoples.” The Aria begins with cello pizzicato, echoing elements ​ ​ of Bach’s baroque dances, followed by the soprano vocalizing in the style of the modinha, a Brazilian folk-love song. The middle section includes poetry by soprano ​ Ruth Valladares Correa, who would go on to premiere the piece in 1939. Her text paints a calm, clear night quickly eclipsed by the brilliant moon. Yet, while the moon’s beauty incites joy and celebration from Nature and Sky, the moonlight only awakens a “cruel missing” in her and the aching cry of the modinha returns now ​ ​ ​ ​ tinged with a weary surrender.

Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) Poèmes pour Mi Duration: 16 minutes On June 22, 1932, Olivier Messiaen married French composer and violinist Claire ​ ​ Delbos. It was a joyous and happy marriage, and they were deeply devoted to each other, and often gave joint concerts together. In 1936, the couple spent the summer in a tiny house on the shore of Le Grand lac de Laffrey (The Great Laffrey lake) where, over the next few decades, much of Messiaen’s composing would be done, including Poèmes pour Mi, his present to Claire, whose pet name was ‘Mi.’ From the ​ ​ work’s title, it can be inferred that this set of poems written by the composer is simply a love song to his beloved Mi. However, further inspection of the poetry reveals a deeply conflicted young man, “struggling with what he... apparently perceived as the demands of two ‘loves’ in potential conflict with one another: conjugal love and mystic love.” This reveals that these texts are not ‘about Mi,’ but precisely ‘for Mi,’ that she might use them to better understand his state of mind. Messiaen, a devout Catholic, viewed marriage as both a “reality and a symbol,” and that it was a union of two people, not just legally but physically and morally. As a young newlywed, Messiaen was torn between the dualities of body and soul, spiritual and physical, secular and sacred - a struggle seen repeatedly throughout the piece.

Laura Nicole Smalley • May 13, 2017 Program Notes

The first movement, “Action de grâces,” is a prayerful thanksgiving for God’s gifts: nature, his wife, and the sacrifice of Christ. Messiaen sets the opening text in a chant-like tone, evoking a liturgical essence. But soon he is met with conflict. In “Paysage,” it is the dueling immortality of the lake - certainly the Lac de Laffrey - ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ and the road “full of woes.” In “Ta voix” and “Le collier” it is the conflicting views of his wife: he imagines her soul as “even more beautiful” in eternity, yet as real and intimate as her arms around his neck. For a moment he is caught up in the latter, and accepts the simple joys of their union. Sadly, that moment is brief. Suddenly, in “Prière exaucée” he is thrown back into the “bitter waters of the heart.” Guilt-ridden, he commands his heart to “ring out...for your God!” until the joy of salvation is returned to him.

Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) On this Island Duration: 14 minutes During their early friendship, W.H. Auden had an immense impact on the youthful Benjamin Britten, both personally and professionally. They first collaborated on ​ ​ “Our Hunting Fathers,” a song cycle for voice and orchestra, in 1936. Later, Britten would call it his ‘real’ Op. 1. (Sinfonietta, published in 1932, being his true first ​ ​ opus.) In his next song set, On This Island, Britten showed a “growing literacy ​ ​ independence,” choosing from Auden’s contemporary poetry volume Look, ​ Stranger! on his own. These musical settings of Auden’s complex, English poetry ​ would provide insight into his later mastery of English song. The chosen texts reflect the social and political environment of the late 1930s: the steady rise of Fascism in continental Europe and England’s simultaneous apathy towards it. Both word and melody shift between satirical and foreboding.

No doubt prompted by Auden’s specific use of the instrumental references and phrases, “Let the Florid Music Praise” opens the set with brilliant, Neo-baroque piano flourishes and a stately solo line that recalls when “imperial standards” flew proudly over Europe. The second verse contrasts this with a lamenting vocal line that tells the fate of the “unloved”: once a powerful force, but who will ultimately suffer loss in the face of new and growing powers. This fear of the future is ​ ​ continued in “Now the Leaves are Falling Fast,” its running vocal line paired with the endless, drumming of the piano. Together they illustrate the anxieties of those in England who remembered the disastrous consequences of the Great War,

Laura Nicole Smalley • May 13, 2017 Program Notes

yet helplessly watched as their country remained a “cold, impossible mountain.” “Seascape” depicts the swelling waves of the English Channel, a barrier at the time between Britain and the problems of Europe, but Britten warns here that it may not hold fast. In “Nocturne,” a lullaby of rising and falling arpeggios mimics a “musical snore.” The text prayerfully asks that its friend may go unharmed during the long night and “gently wake” with the morning. Britten ends the cycle with the cabaret-like song, “As it is, Plenty,” whose jaunty melody cites a cheerful disdain for life “as it is” in England in the 1930s. It bitingly suggests that those committing “venal sins” must be protected from the reality that their actions cause losses that are both “major and final.” In the end, Britten and Auden would see their predictions become reality. On the eve of World War II, the two friends, both of them pacifists, emigrated to the US: Auden in 1938, closely followed by Britten in 1939.

Notes by Laura Nicole Smalley.

804 West Belden Avenue Chicago, IL 60614 773.325.7260 music.depaul.edu